Key Whakker/Thumper...you boys are in trouble!

[Conrad Hoffsommer]

Robin,
At 18:31 02/11/2001 +1030, you wrote:

Comments interspersed...

>I also would like to add that a very big percentage of customers would be 
>horrified when they see you apply this closed fist assault on their prize 
>instrument with a Whakker/thumper etc.

I've never had horrified customers.  I explain that I play harder than they 
ever will to be sure that the string has moved/rendered across 4 or 5 
friction points.

>Most of these customers would be too polite to say anything, but their 
>minds must be in a turmoil over whether they should ask you to be less 
>aggressive with their beloved piano.

Naaah...  Folks around here know I can take it as well as I can dish it out.

>I would suggest that if you are tuning too many pianos a day/week....have 
>a break and let the injury heal or.... have a close look at your technique 
>and adjust accordingly.
>
>I tune 25-30 pianos a week and I hit very hard... but the only injuries I 
>have at the end of the week are tender finger tips.

You must be a young thing...  I used to do that until I had carpal tunnel 
release surgery done on both wrists.

>Concert Pianists practice 8 hrs and more a day.......How many of them 
>use...... Key Whakker/Thumpers?.....think about it!!
>
>Robin (Aussie)
and...
>I don't play. Not too many concert pianists with tendon trouble. Those that
>do have trouble, maybe that's why they are not concert pianists. Besides, I
>never claimed my key whakker sounded very good!  :-)
>Terry Farrell

Here at a college with multiple piano majors and professors, I DO see 
pianists with tendon problems (including the head of the piano faculty)

But... That said.   How many of them only play unisons or basic intervals 
up to an octave, or Czerny/Hanon/octaves for eight hours at a stretch?

The primary function of the thumper (for me) is to take the shock/trauma of 
striking the keys away from my wrists.  I don't believe that I "settle" the 
strings any firmer now than I did with bare wrists, but my wrists thank me.


Conrad Hoffsommer - Luther College, Decorah, IA
Ignorance doesn't kill you, but it will make you sweat a lot.-Haitian proverb